The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Volume I Part 40

[Footnote 191: A letter, addressed to a private friend but intended to be made public, denouncing the reactionary and oppressive administration of the restored Pope.]

[Footnote 192: Probably the first part of _Casa Guidi Windows_.]

[Footnote 193: By A.H. Clough and T. Burbidge.]

To Florence, accordingly, they returned in October, and settled down once more in Casa Guidi for the winter. Mrs. Browning's princ.i.p.al literary occupation at this time was the preparation of a new edition of her poems, including nearly all the contents of the 'Seraphim'

volume of 1838, more or less revised, as well as the 'Poems' of 1844. This edition, published in 1850, has formed the basis of all subsequent editions of her poems. Meanwhile her husband was engaged in the preparation of 'Christmas Eve and Easter Day,' which was also published in the course of 1850.

_To Miss Mitford_ Florence: December I, 1849.

My ever loved friend, you will have wondered at this unusual silence; and so will my sisters to whom I wrote just now, after a pause as little in my custom. It was not the fault of my head and heart, but of this unruly body, which has been laid up again in the way of all flesh of mine....

I am well again now, only obliged to keep quiet and give up my grand walking excursions, which poor Robert used to be so boastful of. If he is vain about anything in the world, it is about my improved health, and I used to say to him, 'But you needn't talk so much to people of how your wife walked here with you and there with you, as if a wife with a pair of feet was a miracle of nature.' Now the poor feet have fallen into their old ways again. Ah, but if G.o.d pleases it won't be for long....

The American auth.o.r.ess, Miss Fuller, with whom we had had some slight intercourse by letter, and who has been at Rome during the siege, as a devoted friend of the republicans and a meritorious attendant on the hospitals, has taken us by surprise at Florence, retiring from the Roman field with a husband and child above a year old. n.o.body had even suspected a word of this underplot, and her American friends stood in mute astonishment before this apparition of them here. The husband is a Roman marquis, appearing amiable and gentlemanly, and having fought well, they say, at the siege, but with no pretension to cope with his wife on any ground appertaining to the intellect. She talks, and he listens. I always wonder at that species of marriage; but people are so different in their matrimonial ideals that it may answer sometimes.

This Mdme. Ossoli saw George Sand in Paris--was at one of her soirees--and called her 'a magnificent creature.' The soiree was 'full of rubbish' in the way of its social composition, which George Sand likes, _nota bene_. If Mdme. Ossoli called it '_rubbish_' it must have been really rubbish--not expressing anything conventionally so--she being one of the out and out _Reds_ and scorners of grades of society.

She said that she did not see Balzac. Balzac went into the world scarcely at all, frequenting the lowest cafes, so that it was difficult to track him out. Which information I receive doubtingly.

The rumours about Balzac with certain parties in Paris are not likely to be too favorable nor at all reliable, I should fancy; besides, I never entertain disparaging thoughts of my demi-G.o.ds unless they should be forced upon me by evidence you must know. I have not made a demi-G.o.d of Louis Napoleon, by the way--no, and I don't mean it. I expect some better final result than he has just proved himself to be of the French Revolution, with all its bitter and cruel consequences. .h.i.therto, so I can't quite agree with you. Only so far, that he has shown himself up to this point to be an upright man with n.o.ble impulses, and that I give him much of my sympathy and respect in the difficult position held by him. A man of genius he does not seem to be--and what, after all, will he manage to do at Rome? I don't take up the frantic Republican cry in Italy. I know too well the want of knowledge and the consequent want of i effective faith and energy among the Italians; but there is a stain upon France in the present state of the Roman affair, and I don't shut my eyes to that either. To cast Rome helpless and bound into the hands of the priests is dishonor to the actors, however we consider the act; and for the sake of France, even more than for the sake of Italy, I yearn to see the act cancelled. Oh, we have had the sight of Clough and Burbidge, at last.

Clough has more thought, Burbidge more music; but I am disappointed in the book on the whole. What I like infinitely better is Clough's 'Bothie of Toper-na-fuosich,' a 'long vacation pastoral,' written in loose and more-than-need-be unmusical hexameters, but full of vigour and freshness, and with pa.s.sages and indeed whole scenes of great beauty and eloquence. It seems to have been written before the other poems. Try to get it, if you have not read it already. I feel certain you will like it and think all the higher of the poet. Oh, it strikes both Robert and me as being worth twenty of the other little book, with its fragmentary, dislocated, unartistic character. Arnold's volume has two good poems in it: 'The Sick King of Bokhara' and 'The Deserted Merman.' I like them both. But none of these writers are _artists_, whatever they may be in future days. Have you read 'Shirley,' and is it as good as 'Jane Eyre'? We heard not long since that Mr. Chorley had discovered the author, _the_ 'Currer Bell.' A woman, most certainly. We hear, too, that three large editions of the 'Princess' are sold. So much the happier for England and poetry.

Dearest dear Miss Mitford, mind you write to me, and don't pay me out in my own silence! _You_ have not been ill, I hope and trust. Write and tell me every little thing of yourself--how you are, and whether there is still danger of your being uprooted from Three Mile Cross. I love and think of you always. Fancy Flush being taken in the light of a rival by baby! Oh, baby was quite jealous the other day, and strugggled and kicked to get to me because he saw Flush leaning his pretty head on my lap. There's a great strife for privileges between those two. May G.o.d bless you! My husband's kind regards always, while I am your most

Affectionate E.B.B.

_To Miss Mitford_ Florence: January 9, 1850.

Thank you, ever dearest Miss Mitford, for this welcome letter written on your birthday! May the fear of small-pox have pa.s.sed away long before now, and every hope and satisfaction have strengthened and remained!...

May G.o.d bless you and give you many happy years, you who can do so much towards the happiness of others. May I not answer for my own?...

Little Wiedeman began to crawl on Christmas Day. Before, he used to roll. We throw things across the floor and he crawls for them like a little dog, on all fours....

He has just caught a cold, which I make more fuss about than I ought, say the wise; but I can't get resigned to the a.s.sociation of any sort of suffering with his laughing dimpled little body--it is the blowing about in the wind of such a heap of roses. So you prefer 'Shirley' to 'Jane Eyre'! Yet I hear from n.o.body such an opinion; yet you are very probably right, for 'Shirley' may suffer from the natural reaction of the public mind. What you tell me of Tennyson interests me as everything about him must. I like to think of him digging gardens--room for cabbage and all. At the same time, what he says about the public '_hating_ poetry' is certainly not a word for Tennyson. Perhaps no true poet, having claims upon attention _solely_ through his poetry, has attained so certain a success with such short delay. Instead of being pelted (as nearly every true poet has been), he stands already on a pedestal, and is recognised as a master spirit not by a coterie but by the great public. Three large editions of the 'Princess' have already been sold. If he isn't satisfied after all, I think he is wrong. Divine poet as he is, and no laurel being too leafy for him, yet he must be an unreasonable man, and not understanding of the growth of the laurel trees and the nature of a reading public.

With regard to the other garden-digger, dear Mr. Home, I wish as you do that I could hear something satisfactory of him. I wrote from Lucca in the summer, and have no answer. The latest word concerning him is the announcement in the 'Athenaeum' of a third edition of his 'Gregory the Seventh,' which we were glad to see, but very, very glad we should be to have news of his prosperity in the flesh as well as in the _litterae scriptae_....

I have not been out of doors these two months, but people call me 'looking well,' and a newly married niece of Miss Bayley's, the accomplished Miss Thomson, who has become the wife of Dr. Emil Braun (the learned German secretary of the Archaeological Society), and just pa.s.sed through Florence on her way to Rome, where they are to reside, declared that the change she saw in me was miraculous--'wonderful indeed.' I took her to look at Wiedeman in his cradle, fast asleep, and she won my heart (over again, for always she was a favorite of mine) by exclaiming at his prettiness. Charmed, too, we both were with Dr. Braun--I mean Robert and I were charmed. He has a mixture of fervour and simplicity which is still more delightfully picturesque in his foreign English. Oh, he speaks English perfectly, only with an obvious accent enough. I am sure we should be cordial friends, if the lines had fallen to us in the same pleasant places; but he is fixed at Rome, and we are half afraid of the enervating effects of the Roman climate on the const.i.tutions of children. Tell me, do you hear often from Mr. Chorley? It quite pains us to observe from his manner of writing the great depression of his spirits. His mother was ill in the summer, but plainly the sadness does not arise entirely or chiefly from this cause. He seems to me over-worked, taxed in the spirit. I advise n.o.body to give up work; but that 'Athenaeum' labour is a sort of treadmill discipline in which there is no progress, nor triumph, and I do wish he would give that up and come out to us with a new set of anvils and hammers. Only, of course, he couldn't do it, even if he would, while there is illness in his family. May there be a whole sun of success shining on the new play! Robert is engaged on a poem,[194]

and I am busy with my edition. So much to correct, I find, and many poems to add. Plainly 'Jane Eyre' was by a woman. It used to astound me when sensible people said otherwise. Write to me, will you? I long to hear again. Tell me everything of yourself; accept my husband's true regards, and think of me as your

Ever affectionate E.B.B.

[Footnote 194: _Christmas Eve and Easter Day_.]

_To Miss Browning_ Florence: January 29, 1850.

My dearest Sarianna,--I have waited to thank you for your great and ready kindness about the new edition, until now when it is fairly on its way to England. Thank you, thank you! I am only afraid, not that you will find anything too 'learned,' as you suggest, but a good many things too careless, I was going to say, only Robert, with various deep sighs for 'his poor Sarianna,' devoted himself during several days to rearranging my arrangements, and simplifying my complications.

It was the old story of Order and Disorder over again. He pulled out the knotted silks with an indefatigable patience, so that really you will owe to _him_ every moment of ease and facility which may be enjoyable in the course of the work. I am afraid that at the easiest you will find it a vexatious business, but I throw everything on your kindness, and am not distrustful on such a point of weights and measures.

Your letter was full of sad news. Robert was deeply affected at the account of the illness of his cousin--was in tears before he could end the letter. I do hope that in a day or two we may hear from you that the happy change was confirmed as time pa.s.sed on. I do hope so; it will be joy, not merely to Robert, but to me, for indeed I never forget the office which his kindness performed for both of us at a crisis ripe with all the happiness of my life.

Then it was sad to hear of your dear father suffering from lumbago.

May the last of it have pa.s.sed away long before you get what I am writing! Tell him with my love that Wiedeman shall hear some day (if we all live) the verses he wrote to him; and I have it in my head that little Wiedeman will be very sensitive to verses and kindness too--he likes to hear anything rhythmical and musical, and he likes to be petted and kissed--the most affectionate little creature he is--sitting on my knee, while I give him books to turn the leaves over (a favorite amus.e.m.e.nt), every two minutes he puts up his little rosebud of a mouth to have a kiss. His cold is quite gone, and he has taken advantage of the opportunity to grow still fatter; as to his activities, there's no end to them. His nurse and I agree that he doesn't remain quiet a moment in the day....[195]

Now the love of nephews can't bear any more, Sarianna, can it? Only your father will take my part and say that it isn't tedious--beyond pardoning.

May G.o.d bless both of you, and enable you to send a brighter letter next time. Robert will be very anxious.

Your ever affectionate sister BA.

Mention yourself, _do_.

[Footnote 195: A long description of the baby's meals and daily programme follows, the substance of which can probably be imagined by connoisseurs in the subject.]

_To Miss Mitford_ Florence: February 18, 1850.

Ever dearest Miss Mitford, you _always_ give me pleasure, so for love's sake don't say that you 'seldom give it,' and such a magical act as conjuring up for me the sight of a new poem by Alfred Tennyson[196] is unnecessary to prove you a right beneficent enchantress. Thank you, thank you. We are not so unworthy of your redundant kindness as to abuse it by a word spoken or sign signified.

You may trust us indeed. But now you know how free and sincere I am always! Now tell me. Apart from the fact of this lyric's being a fragment of fringe from the great poet's 'singing clothes' (as Leigh Hunt says somewhere), and apart from a certain sweetness and rise and fall in the rhythm, do you really see much for admiration in the poem?

Is it _new_ in, any way? I admire Tennyson with the most worshipping part of the mult.i.tude, as you are aware, but I do _not_ perceive much in this lyric, which strikes me, and Robert also (who goes with me throughout), as quite inferior to the other lyrical s.n.a.t.c.hes in the 'Princess.' By the way, if he introduces it in the 'Princess,' it will be the only _rhymed_ verse in the work. Robert thinks that he was thinking of the Rhine echoes in writing it, and not of any heard in his Irish travels. I hear that Tennyson has taken rooms above Mr.

Forster's in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and is going to try a London life.

So says Mr. Kenyon.... I am writing with an easier mind than when I wrote last, for I was for a little time rendered very unhappy (so unhappy that I couldn't touch on the subject, which is always the way with me when pain pa.s.ses a certain point), by hearing accidentally that papa was unwell and looking altered. My sister persisted in replying to my anxieties that they were unfounded, that I was quite absurd, indeed, in being anxious at all; only people are not generally reformed from their absurdities through being scolded for them. Now, however, it really appears that the evil has pa.s.sed. He left his doctor who had given him lowering medicines, and, coincidently with the leaving, he has recovered looks and health altogether. Arabel says that I should think he was looking as well as ever, if I saw him, and that appet.i.te and spirits are even redundant. Thank G.o.d.... To have this good news has made me very happy, and I overflow to you accordingly. Oh, there is pain enough from that quarter, without hearing of his being out of health. I write to him continually and he does not now return my letters, which is a melancholy something gained. Now enough of such a subject.

I certainly don't think that the qualities, half savage and half freethinking, expressed in 'Jane Eyre' are likely to suit a model governess or schoolmistress; and it amuses me to consider them in that particular relation. Your account falls like dew upon the parched curiosity of some of our friends here, to whom (as mere gossip, which did not leave you responsible) I couldn't resist the temptation of communicating it. People _are_ so curious--even here among the Raffaels--about this particular authorship, yet n.o.body seems to have read 'Shirley'; we are too slow in getting new books. First Galignani has to pirate them himself, and then to hand us over the spoils.

By the way, there's to be an international copyright, isn't there?

Something is talked of it in the 'Athenaeum.' Meanwhile the Americans have already reprinted my husband's new edition. 'Landthieves, I mean pirates.' I used to take that for a slip of the pen in Shakespeare; but it was a slip of the pen into prophecy. Sorry I am at Mrs. ---- falling short of your warm-hearted ideas about her! Can you understand a woman's hating a girl because it is not a boy--her first child too?

I understand it so little that scarcely I can believe it. Some women _have_, however, undeniably an indifference to children, just as many men have, though it must be unnatural and morbid in both s.e.xes.

Men often affect it--very foolishly, if they count upon the scenic effects; affectation never succeeds well, and this sort of affectation is peculiarly unbecoming, except in old bachelors, for there is a pathetic side to the question so viewed. For my part and my husband's, we may be frank and say that we have caught up our parental pleasures with a sort of pa.s.sion. But then, Wiedeman is such a darling little creature; who _could_ help loving the child?... Little darling! So much mischief was not often put before into so small a body. Fancy the child's upsetting the water jugs till he is drenched (which charms him), pulling the brooms to pieces, and having serious designs upon cutting up his frocks with a pair of scissors. He laughs like an imp when he can succeed in doing anything wrong. Now, see what you get, in return for your kindness of 'liking to hear about' him! Almost I have the grace to be ashamed a little. Just before I had your letter we sent my new edition to England. I gave much time to the revision, and did not omit reforming some of the rhymes, although you must consider that the irregularity of these in a certain degree rather falls in with my system than falls out through my carelessness. So much the worse, you will say, when a person is _systematically_ bad. The work will include the best poems of the 'Seraphim' volume, strengthened and improved as far as the circ.u.mstances admitted of. I had not the heart to leave out the wretched sonnet to yourself, for your dear sake; but I rewrote the latter half of it (for really it wasn't a sonnet at all, and 'Una and her lion' are rococo), and so placed it with my other poems of the same cla.s.s. There are some new, verses also.[197] The Miss Hardings I have seen, and talked with them of _you_, a sure way of finding them delightful. But, my dearest friend, I shall not see any of the Trollope party--it is not likely. You can scarcely image to yourself the retired life we live, or how we have retreated from the kind advances of the English society here. Now people seem to understand that we are to be left alone; that nothing is to be made of us. The fact is, we are not like our child, who kisses everybody who smiles at him! Neither my health nor our pecuniary circ.u.mstances, nor our inclinations perhaps, would admit of our entering into English society here, which is kept up much after the old English models, with a proper disdain for Continental simplicities of expense. We have just heard from Father Prout, who often, he says, sees Mr. Horne, 'who is as dreamy as ever.' So glad I am, for I was beginning to be uneasy about him. He has not answered my letter from Lucca. The verses in the 'Athenaeum'[198] are on Sophia Cottrell's child.

May G.o.d bless you, dearest friend. Speak of _yourself_ more particularly to your ever affectionate

E.B.B.

Robert's kindest regards. Tell us of Mr. Chorley's play, do.

[Footnote 196: Apparently the _Echo-song_ which now precedes canto iv. of the _Princess_, though one is surprised at the opinion here expressed of it. It will be remembered that this and the other lyrical interludes did not appear in the original edition of the _Princess_.]

[Footnote 197: Notably the _Sonnets from the Portuguese_.]

[Footnote 198: 'A Child's Death at Florence,' which appeared in the _Athenaeum_ of December 22, 1849.]

_To Mrs. Martin_ Florence: February 22, 1850.

My dearest Mrs. Martin,--Have you wondered that I did not write before? It was not that I did not thank you in my heart for your kind, considerate letter, but I was unconquerably uncomfortable about papa; and, what with the weather, which always has me in its power somehow, and other things, I fell into a dislike of writing, which I hope you didn't mistake for ingrat.i.tude, because it was not in the least like the same fault. Now the severe weather (such weather for Italy!) has broken up, and I am relieved in all ways, having received the most happy satisfactory news from Wimpole Street, and the a.s.surance from my sisters that if I were to see papa I should think him looking as well as ever. He grew impatient with Dr. Elliotson's medicines which, it appears, were of a very lowering character--suddenly gave them up, and as suddenly recovered his looks and all the rest, and everybody at home considers him to be _quite well_. It has relieved me of a mountain's weight, and I thank G.o.d with great joy. Oh, you must have understood how natural it was for me to be unhappy under the other circ.u.mstances. But if you thought, dearest friend, that _they_ were necessary to induce me to write to him the humblest and most beseeching of letters, you do not know how I feel his alienation or my own love for him. I With regard to my brothers, it is quite different, though even towards _them_ I may faithfully say that my affection has borne itself higher than my pride. But as to papa, I have never contended about the right or the wrong, I have never irritated him by seeming to suppose that his severity to me has been more than justice.

I have confined myself simply to a supplication for--his forgiveness of what he called, in his own words, the only fault of my life towards him, and an expression of the love which even I must feel I for him, whether he forgives me or not. This has been done in letter after letter, and they are not sent back--it is all. In my last letter, I ventured to ask him to let it be an understood thing that he should before the world, and to every practical purpose, act out his idea of justice by excluding me formally, me and mine, from every advantage he intended his other children--that, having so been just, he might afford to be merciful by giving me his forgiveness and affection--all I asked and desired. My husband and I had talked this over again and again; only it was a difficult thing to say, you see. At last I took courage and said it, because, doing it, papa might seem to himself to reconcile his notion of strict justice, and whatever remains of pity and tenderness might still be in his heart towards me, if there are any such. I _know_ he has strong feelings at bottom--otherwise, should I love him so?--but he has adopted a bad system, and he (as well as I) is crushed by it.... If I were to write to you the political rumours we hear every day, you would scarcely think our situation improved in safety by the horrible Austrian army. Florence bristles with cannon on all sides, and at the first movement we are promised to be bombarded.

On the other hand, if the red republicans get uppermost there will be a universal ma.s.sacre; not a priest, according to their own profession, will be left alive in Italy. The const.i.tutional party hope they are gaining strength, but the progress which depends on intellectual growth must necessarily be slow. That the Papacy has for ever lost its prestige and power over souls is the only evident truth; bright and strong enough to cling to. I hear even devout women say: 'This cursed Pope! it's all his fault.' Protestant places of worship are thronged with Italian faces, and the minister of the Scotch church at Leghorn has been threatened with exclusion from the country if he admits Tuscans to the church communion. Politically speaking, much will depend upon France, and I have strong hope for France, though it is so strictly the fashion to despair of her. Tell me dear Mr. Martin's impression and your own--everything is good that comes from you. But most _particularly_, tell me how you both are--tell me whether you are strong again, dearest Mrs. Martin, for indeed I do not like to hear of your being in the least like an invalid. Do speak of yourself a little more. Do you know, you are very unsatisfactory as a letter-writer when you write about yourself--the reason being that you never do write about yourself except by the suddenest s.n.a.t.c.hes, when you can't possibly help the reference....